


All men must serve

by bluebells



Category: Overwatch (Video Game)
Genre: Angst, Commander of Aerial Superiority Fareeha, Demon Hanzo, Dragons, Drama, Heir apparent Lucio, Humour, Intentional change in past and present tense usage, M/M, Oni Genji, Overwatch with High Fantasy AU, Protector of the Realm Ana, The horrors of adulting (being King), The one where Bells loses all chill and just drools over dragons, Unnecessary world building, Weredragon Akande
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-08-19
Updated: 2017-08-29
Packaged: 2018-12-17 07:24:45
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 13,943
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11846754
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/bluebells/pseuds/bluebells
Summary: The one where dragons arenotdead, can talk, and one has just abducted Rio de Janeiro's next king from the royal Amari residence. Lúcio would really like a straight answer, but apparently dragons weren't built to speak plainly, have manners, or even a sense of humour. An accidentally serious AU where most  of Overwatch is the same, but with high fantasy, kingdoms and too much politics.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

  * For [CelestialStars](https://archiveofourown.org/users/CelestialStars/gifts).



> This is what happens when a friend asks me for a (Were)Dragon AU when I'm watching _Game of Thrones_. Written in response to quite a detailed prompt that had nothing to do with GoT, so let's just say nobody waxes in High Valyrian, but it was a close thing.

“Oi! I heard you got some _treasure_ up in that castle? Any truth to it, ya snek?”

From his crouch on the ramparts of the gatehouse, Lúcio raises his head, looking up to his companion, bewildered.

“Did he just call you a ‘snek’?”

“Snek,” comes the deep, rumbling reply. Unimpressed.

Knees drawn to his chest, Lúcio scrunches his nose, mouth twisting in a sideways smile. A long look is exchanged, atmosphere turning expectant as Lúcio’s judgment is gauged; at last, he cracks, shoulders trembling with his laughter.

“Fine,” his companion huffs in heavy exasperation above Lúcio, stirring the hair on his brow in a warm gust.

“Don’t hurt them,” Lúcio says.

“As you wish,” the concession is ground through jaws more accustomed to crushing the bones of lesser men.

Well practised, Lúcio covers his ears as his companion draws back to his impressive height, tall as the gates to the Temple of Anubis, spreads his wings and opens his mouth with a roar that rends the air in a gout of flame.

Lúcio breathes slow, his heart thundering, and waits for it to be over.

///

“What is that now? The fifth in two days?” Lúcio asks when his would-be rescuers have fled to the shelter of the forest beyond. He rests his chin on his arms, leaning on the stone battlements, and sighs, closing his eyes to the warm summer breeze on his face.

“I don’t count.”

Lúcio laughs under his breath, looking up, up and up to the proud arch of that serpentine neck above him, ending in a head larger than Lúcio’s entire body. Those huge, amber eyes linger on the forest, perhaps watching the recent duo continue to flee through the shadows. Lúcio doesn’t know much about tricks of his companion’s vision. How much farther does he see than the human eye? Does he see in the dark? Are the folk stories true, and his vision can pierce a man’s flesh to read the lies and fears of his heart?

“You expect me to believe that a dragon who knows the weight of every coin in its hoard, can’t count a small stream of mercenaries?”

Those large eyes finally drag away from their quarry, darkening with the growth of their pupils, wide and calm. The threat has passed. The sun sinks towards the horizon, blurring the sky white gold with smears of Hanamura pink.

The dragon shifts back to look at the small man by his forelegs, his tail uncoiling behind him in easy counter-balance. When his clawed feet shift on the stone, it is almost silent.

“Have you seen a hoard since you arrived in my castle, Prince? Have you counted the coins to my name?” A ripple of spikes shudders down the dragon’s back, flexing the muscles of his neck, his broad shoulders. Those eyes narrow at Lúcio, a ring of amber, gold and so many shades of earth. His nostrils flare in disdain. “I am not that kind of dragon.”

The dragon turns his back and Lúcio watches him scale down the wall, slithering to the comfortable green of the courtyard below.

“No,” Lúcio murmurs. “I’m learning that.”

///

It’s been two days since Lúcio came into this dragon’s company, two days since he was brought to this castle in the claws of a creature larger than the long boats of Oasis, and deposited, scrambling and mute with terror, on an overgrown meadow of castle grounds.

“No harm will come to you,” was the first thing the dragon ever said to him.

It shook him to the core. Nobody had seen a dragon in over a hundred years. Their scientists thought they might have died out, resigned to their seclusion. And then one came for Lúcio in the middle of the night.

A dragon. And it could talk. They didn’t write that in the history books.

Lúcio still catches himself stealing glances at the great beast as it suns itself, as it stalks the battlements almost too narrow to hold its girth. There is no hallucinating those huge jaws when they gape in a yawn. Lúcio could have never imagined the gleam of those wicked teeth in such detail, even after seeing their likeness in the pristine records of the Shambali.

Nothing prepares you for the way the air shudders when a dragon growls in the moment they pull back, before the snarl, before their chest tremors and thousands of years of evolution spew forth a viscous, molten core.

The first time Lúcio saw this dragon breathe fire, his heart almost stopped. And at the same time, he stared.

It was high noon of the first day Lúcio had been taken. A man strode up to the castle, pistol on his hip, dusk red serape across his shoulders, and a wide brim hat over his eyes. Likely a wanderer, nobody could have tracked their course so soon, but he crossed the perimeter and was soundly confronted.

Words were exchanged, but by the time Lúcio climbed the stairs of the gatehouse, he was too late to hear them.

It was a warning, Lúcio realised, watching the dragon breathe in an arc that looked wild, but he would later learn preserved a great buffer of safety.

That fire had been terrifying… and beautiful.

The stranger staggered and ran for the trees, and was not seen again.

The dragon had turned back to Lúcio, who stared, wide-eyed, from the safety of the gatehouse towers. It was strange to see such a proud creature of legend pull upright, as if surprised to find itself being watched. A tense pause drew between them, the dragon blinked at him, tilting his head in question. Lúcio’s ears still rang with the bellow of the dragon’s flame, his head empty of speech. When neither of them spoke, the creature snuffled a deep breath, glancing away, back to Lúcio, and away once more.

What reason did a dragon have to hesitate? He was sure the dragon intended to speak, but then it abruptly turned its back and launched to the skies.

Less than an hour later, it returned with the corpse of a boar and lit it aflame before him in the open courtyard.

“You haven’t eaten since we arrived. My apologies,” the dragon had said, cleaving the meal with one of its claws.

Lúcio approached the smoking ruin of meat carefully, accepting a torn off strip of flesh. It was crumbled and oozed in his hands, most parts burnt or still raw beneath, heated too quickly to cook through. Lúcio picked at the little that was left edible, managing a smile. “I found some food still in the stores. The well and its filters are still in working order. I haven’t starved.” He glanced up at the dragon, unable to hold the intensity of that dark gaze blinking down at him. “Thank you.”

“Your heartbeat,” the dragon murmured. “And your scent. You’re not afraid.”

Lúcio chewed thoughtfully around the scorched meat. Swallowing was difficult. He should have brought a pitcher of water from the well. He could feel juice and ash smear below his lip and wiped it with the back of his hand. “You said no harm would come to me. You’ve kept your word.”

Rather than reply, the dragon turned back to the boar and devoured its half in one gulp, tossing its head back to work the great mass down its throat.

“Why did you bring me here?” Lúcio asked quietly. “Who are you?”

“You can ask one or the other. Choose which is more important to you, Prince.” The dragon lumbered to a shallow pool of water that had gathered in the corner of the courtyard and dipped its head to drink. Lúcio watched its muzzle break the surface of the water, collecting shallow gulps in its lower jaw.

“Who are you?” he decided.

The dragon raised its head, gaze lingering on walls overrun with mildew and climbing vines. Its tail flicked in tense curls at its back. “One of many with debts.”

///

Evening brought a cool summer breeze with clear skies, but no moon to guard them.

Lúcio tried to extend the olive branch when the dragon returned with another prize for their dinner. Bringing some of the remains from the food storage, the dragon watched him as it gnawed at its roasted goat. The meat was better cooked this time around.

“We weren’t born royalty, you know,” Lúcio smiled, raising the wine goblet in toast. “But when my family led the rebellion and drove the Vishkar out, the people turned to my mother. We don’t like the titles of ‘Queen’ and ‘Prince’, but that’s how the other kingdoms recognise us. Our people called her ‘Mother’. And I was her only son.”

The smile weakened and Lúcio looked deep into his cup. He swirled the dark red, two-thirds empty, and wished he could divine some guidance for the road ahead from its ripples. The quiet that settled around them was comfortable, the dragon unmoving and patient as Lúcio gathered his thoughts. He refilled his goblet from the wineskin, sighing in his slouch against the courtyard pillar.

Lúcio’s voice lowered, quiet, resting the goblet on his thigh. “The doctors didn’t expect the fever to take her so quickly. She was supposed to govern them, not me. I was raised to serve my people, not to rule. The bard drives and fights with his people. I don’t know the first thing about ruling.”

Between him and the dragon, a small fire burned in a pit gouged from the earth, lined with stones, throwing sparks and monstrous shadows at the dragon’s back.

“If you know how to serve, then you already know the most important truth of ruling,” the dragon said, startling him. Its dark eyes glittered at Lúcio from across the pit, holding him. “A king is a servant of his people. Of their health. He is their shelter, their provider and their protector.”

Lúcio studied the articulation of those features and wondered how long this dragon had lived, how long it would take Lúcio to acquire the same calm and certainty.

Might the dragon be feeling less evasive now under the shroud of stars with a full belly?

“If I asked again, would you tell me the truth?” he murmured.

The dragon huffed under his breath, the fire bowing before them in the pit.

It’s not an outright refusal. That’s encouraging. He decides to go first. “My name is Lúcio Correia dos Santos. I serve Rio de Janeiro and her people.”

“You are the Light of five kingdoms,” the dragon rumbled, amusement curling his deep voice.

Lúcio laughed, rubbing the back of his neck. “Yeah, I don’t know who started that nickname.”

“It’s not simply an endearment, my Lord. There are many titles in the royal court. The Light is not one of them. The Light was historically one who the kingdom looks to… for hope. Now you’ve proven you can be their sword as well.”

A sonic amplifier, not a sword. Lúcio stared at the dragon, the lazy curl of his tail against his body. “Who are you that you know so much about the kingdoms?”

“A dragon hears a lot in its travels.”

“Please,” Lúcio pushed gently.

The dragon blinked slowly, firelight dancing across its features. Regal as any lord, it bowed its head. “You may call me ‘Akande’.”

At last. Warmth bloomed in Lúcio’s chest, and he smiled. “Akande.”

“You needed my name, more than your reason for being here?”

“I trust your reasons will become apparent soon enough.”

The dragon grunted, unimpressed. “You may be a fool to trust.”

“I hope not.”

“… Are you so afraid of failing your people that you won’t even try returning to them?”

“Nothing will keep me from my people, least of all you.”

“Won’t I?”

“Because you promised not to harm me.”

The smaller spines along the dragon’s brow rippled, a muscular tic of some emotion Lúcio wished he could understand. “I did. Yes, I did.”

///

The next morning, the sun rose on a cloudless day and the dragon tolerated Lúcio’s company, tailing his new companion on his patrols around the castle grounds.

“How is it that a dragon speaks?”

“Carefully, my Lord.”

“You know that’s not what I mean.”

“It’s what I offer.”

They came to a wrangled mess of fallen trees and Lúcio accepted Akande’s help when the dragon offered his foreleg as a stepping stone, lifting the Prince over the obstruction. As they continued their walk through the dappled glade, Akande seemed half-distracted by the shadows between the trees even as Lúcio fired a volley of questions after him.

“Are there more like you? Can you all speak?”

“I do not speak for the rest. Only myself.”

“So there are others?”

“Whoever remains, I can’t say.”

Lúcio faltered in his step, and was almost knocked over by Akande’s passing wing. “Does… does that mean you’re alone?”

Akande did not break his stride, his tail curling at Lúcio’s back to nudge him forward; _keep up_. “For many years. Yes.”

“Is that why you took me?”

“For the company?” Akande chortled in his throat, a deep twist of bass somewhere between a growl and a scoff. “A romantic notion. Would you prefer that story?”

Lúcio felt his face warm with a blush. It had been a fair question. “What about—“

“May I ask _you_ a question?”

Lúcio stopped, straightening. “Sure.”

“Who are you performing for right now?”

Lúcio blinked. “What?”

Akande had led them to a sharp outcrop on the cliff’s edge where the forest dropped away to a deep, cragged ravine. The bottom fell away to darkness and Akande climbed one of the taller boulders, curling round to regard Lúcio on the ground below. Lúcio had to take a step back to meet his eye, suddenly dwarfed.

“You are hostage to a fearsome dragon. None of your subjects or allies are in company to judge, but still you perform as the Light with your sympathy and concern. Don’t waste your grace here, my Prince. I’ve accepted the consequences of my actions.”

Those powerful wings flexed, a subconscious stretch perhaps, and Lúcio couldn’t help but think Akande maybe enjoyed these consequences. Akande was powerful. Who in five kingdoms could possibly contend with him?

Even so, Lúcio found himself shaking his head. “You’re wrong.”

Akande did not hesitate, expression shuttered and hard as stone. “I am never wrong.”

Nor humble, it seemed. Lúcio leaned a hand on his hip and shaded his eyes to squint up at the inconsiderate behemoth.

“You’re not fearsome.”

_And it’s not a performance._

The dragon growled under his breath. “My oath has made you arrogant.”

“Your oath is proof I have nothing to fear. I’m not the one performing. So, are you fearsome or just _afraid_ people might care?”

Those dark eyes narrowed to slits, and the air rushed from Lúcio's lungs as the earth slammed up behind him. Flattened on his back to the soft grass beneath a massive paw, hot breath rolled over him as Akande’s growl vibrated in his bones, and his vision filled with fangs. Heart leaping to his throat, Lúcio turned away from that vicious maw and shut his eyes, unable to stop the soft whimper that escaped.

Akande could easily crush him beneath a paw, or by simply lowering his massive bulk. The dragon lingered above him, his oppressive presence flooding all of Lucio's senses. Forgotten instincts drew Lucio to be as still and quiet as possible even as his chest heaved, struggling for air.

“Do not test me.” Each slow word carved lines deep in Lúcio’s winded lungs, and he gasped when the dragon wrenched away, air rushing back in with the blinding sun, and Lúcio scrabbled for purchase in gouged earth and grass.

He lay prone on the cliff for some time, waiting for the world to stop tumbling.

///

Akande had taken to the skies after that, presumably to sulk or blow fire at the sun in spite, or whatever it was that dragons did when they were upset. Lúcio stumbled his way back into the castle by himself, abruptly realising it was the first time he was alone since learning Akande’s name. He could not waste the opportunity.

Lúcio had found it hidden in one of the towers the first time Akande had left to find food for them: an information console still in working order, though he did not know how much power remained.

That first day, his first act was to seek word of Rio. His city was holding vigil for his safe return, but otherwise remained stable in the wake of his disappearance, and he breathed a huge sigh of relief.

He didn’t spare time to read through the international response to his disappearance, and opened a messaging agent to reach out to his nearest relative. Typing and delivering a message had been the work of less than a minute. That was yesterday.

Today, he began a new search.

‘Akande’ was a remarkably uncommon name beyond the local region. There were three of special note in recorded history, and none of them associated with the great dragon hordes.

A particular headline from ten years ago caught his eye, and Lúcio lingered. Something Akande had said came back to him. Debts to be paid.

No sooner had he opened the news article, the beat of wings washed over the castle, and Lúcio read quickly with a racing heart.

Wait. This was..... No. He shook his head, combing the loose dreadlocks back as though a clearer vision would make the words before him render any more sense. Was this possible? The details were plain, and there--a photo. A tall man, powerfully built stood silhouetted in the middle of a ravaged city street, broken concrete and bent cars at his feet. He wore loose white pants and no shirt, exposing the full definition of every muscle. On his right arm, a huge gauntlet gleamed a dull gold in the media release, accented with knuckle spikes and horns at the shoulder, it was easily twice the size of his naturally large arm.

Lucio looked back into the man's face, the curve of that strong jaw, soft scowl of his mouth and the eyes that were already seeking their next challenge.

Could it be....?

Mind reeling with the possibility, Lúcio powered down the console and left the maester’s abandoned quarters in a haze. He didn't want to see Akande after the dragon's physical intimidation, the nerve of the creature was-- he didn't have the words, his mind kept blanking, and somehow he found himself descending the steps of the keep to the courtyard, watching his dragon captor release a cow from the grip of its jaws, the heavy corpse sprawling to a misshapen stop by the extinguished fire pit.

He swallowed thickly, watching Akande nose the cadaver and prepare to slice it open to clean it. The ground still felt unsteady beneath Lúcio’s feet. He reached for the stone wall to steady himself, and thought it would be wise to hold his tongue.

“I know who you are.” The words were choked from his throat, echoed in his ears like they had come from someone else. Lúcio certainly hadn’t given them permission to breach the air.

If Akande could hear his racing heart, he decided it didn’t warrant his attention. The dragon didn’t look up from his work, pulling the cadaver open and spilling a slurping mess of entrails and organs, his paws pooling in blood.

“Is that so?”

Lúcio had started this, he had to see it through.

“Akande… Ogundimu. Of House Ogundimu.”

Akande stiffened. Lúcio’s heartrate skyrocketed as the spikes flared on the dragon’s back and he rose on his haunches, dark eyes finding Lúcio across the courtyard, his head turning to follow. The low rumble of his voice was a terrible threat.

“The Prince has been busy.”

So, Lúcio was right.

“The Ogundimu were guardians and purveyors of the Western Watch. I know what you did,” he said, unable to keep the tremor from his voice.

“Do you?”

Lúcio’s stomach dropped when he realised Akande was stalking towards him, hackles raised, posture poised to pounce. His tracks streaked blood in the soft grass, meal forgotten.

“I _know_ why you’re trying to atone…. I know—you weren’t born like this.”

Lúcio wanted to say he was sorry, so sorry for what happened to Akande’s people, but he imagined the dragon’s jaws closing around him for the effort.

Mustering all his courage, his knees shook when he stepped forward, baring his hands instead. Slow. Had to move slowly. Perhaps Akande expected him to run, but Lúcio’s people needed him to be braver than he felt when Akande once again swarmed his senses, almost claustrophobic. He reached out, extending one hand and his heart skipped a beat when Akande flinched back from the light touch on his jaw. Lúcio forced himself to breathe, hold Akande’s eye.

“Who did this to you?”          

The dragon held itself, tightly coiled. His tail lashed at his back.

“You really are a fool, nosing where you don’t belong.”

“Please,” Lúcio pressed, although his heart felt like it might hammer out of his chest and his head rang with the pressure of the blood pounding to his brain, pleading for him to _stop, stop while you’re still breathing._

Akande’s gaze was slitted, predatory, and Lúcio released a tight breath when Akande finally broke their stare, cutting the tension.

“Her name doesn’t matter anymore.”

A woman? “’She’ turned you into this?”

“Sometimes death is too kind a sentence.”

“… I’m sorry.” _For you, and for your people,_ Lúcio couldn’t quite say.

One of those strange chuckles rumbled in Akande’s chest, and Lúcio wondered if laughter was incompatible with dragon physiology.

“Did you know that dragons are immortal? Apparently, we’ll live forever with few exceptions. I was the strongest warrior in all five kingdoms, it was known. My people took great pride, and I would have raised them to their greatest heights. Pushed us forward, as a species. But I forgot who was the servant, and I _razed_ them to the ground. Now I am all that’s left. There is _no one_ else. The only way I will see them again is when I meet my match in battle. But there is nothing that can kill a dragon.” The air trembled as Akande spat the last words, these above all the rest. “Not anymore.”

But Lúcio was not finished. “The one who changed you, is she still alive?”

“Enough,” Akande growled, and lowered on his haunches, with that body language Lúcio had learned meant he was about to disappear to the skies again. Lúcio had to stop him. This dragon couldn’t fly every time he disdained their conversation.

“Why did you bring me here?” he shouted, frustration winning out over whatever sympathy had softened him.

Akande’s lip curled and his sneer was vicious among all those teeth. “Because _she_ asked me to.”

Lúcio stared. So, unless it was an old request, this woman was still alive. And this woman wanted something with Lúcio? What could he do against someone with the power to change a person’s form?

“Who is she?”

Akande licked his upper lip, thick tongue curving over those sharpened teeth. Powerful shoulders flicked his wings in a shrug. “’Search your heart’, a dragon would say.” Akande slanted a sharp look at him instead, mockery in those large, dark eyes. “Are you sure you don’t already know, little one?”

///

More people came, in all shapes and sizes, alighting at the castle moat. Most didn’t even get the chance to open their mouths before Akande swooped in a plume of fire, pursuing the would-be rescuers with a fervour belying his true irritation.

Despite his temperament, he was loyal to whomever asked him this boon. He grumbled less and less each time Lúcio reminded him to spare their visitors from harm. He didn’t demand Lúcio reveal how he had learned of Akande’s true identity; he seemed inclined to speak to the prince as little as possible.

When night came on the second day, Lúcio waited by the glowing fire pit until Akande returned. It was bitterly cold even for a summer night when the dragon finally filled the skies over the castle, returning from wherever he went in his short reprieves to be free of Lúcio.

Akande settled in the courtyard, uncharacteristically heavy in his footsteps, and rekindled the fire with a spitball of flame. Lúcio failed to repress his wince at the resonant flare of heat on his face.

He cleared his throat quietly, gathering his cloak tight around his shoulders.

“The one who did this to you—“

The dragon groaned, but the anger was weary now.

“My Lord, it is late—“

Good, the honorifics were back. Lúcio had realised at some point that it was 'my prince' when Akande was in a bad mood, 'my lord' when he was feeling kinder.

“Between the two of us, you’re the real lord here,” Lúcio said, and that small deferral was enough to entreat Akande to huff and sink to his haunches before the fire. 

"I forfeited all titles when I brought shame to my house."

Akande was closer than he had ever allowed himself before, and Lúcio wondered if he didn’t notice or no longer cared about any consideration of the Prince’s personal space. Akande was close enough for Lúcio to touch, to pinch or tug the web of his wing, if he was feeling especially brave.

Instead, Lúcio welcomed the wordless gesture of trust and looked back to the fire.

“Is she keeping me for something? Or is she keeping me _safe?”_

The wings twitched, then smoothed to a stretch and gathered at Akande’s back. Lúcio smiled to himself. Akande was as poor in hiding his emotions from his wings as he was his face.

“You are the Light of the five kingdoms, maybe our world. The only matter, is that you are safe. It won’t be long now.”

“For what?”

“Before you do what I could not.”

Lúcio frowned. Akande’s penchant for cryptic remarks was maddening. “If this was all to keep me safe, why not just tell me?”

“I did. It was the first thing I told you.”

Lúcio almost tore the dreads from his scalp in frustration. There was a world of difference between Akande’s vague reassurance and the explanation Lúcio had wanted.

“And you can’t tell me who she is? Is it tied to your debts?”

“Maybe I just like frustrating you.” Akande was staring into the fire when Lúcio stared at him, and the dragon’s eyes gleamed with a quiet pleasure.

“Yeah, well it’s working.” Lúcio bit the inside of his cheek, drawing his knees up and resting his elbows there.

“I’m sorry.”

Lúcio’s ears rang, he couldn’t have possibly heard an apology from his proud companion. He was smart to hold his tongue, because Akande continued, “We are designed for riddles and auguries, for hoarding and burning things to the ground. The dragon’s mind is different, I think. I can’t remember. I am sorry. For that and... how I have behaved. It was undignified... of what you deserve, my Lord.”

Lúcio fought not to stare at the dragon in awe lest the apology be retracted (two in the space of a minute, wow) . 

"Thanks," he said and finally glanced up, watching the slow way Akande blinked at the fire, the idle curl of claws over folded wrists. Was Akande troubled, or was that just how Lúcio imagined him? It took some restraint to fight his instincts, and not reach out in comfort, meagre though it would be. Lúcio's voice was quiet, “Thank you for saying that."

Akande scoffed. “Focus on your duties to your people. We speak no more of this.”

The quiet settled around them again, warmer and comfortable, the cow hissing and crackling as it turned on a spit over the fire. Akande's head settled on his forelegs by Lúcio's knee, eyes slipping to half-mast. Lúcio hesitated, heart drumming, and reached out. This time, the dragon acquiesced, pushing his large muzzle into Lúcio’s soft palm. It was inexplicable, the way Lúcio’s heart soared, how it felt like he would fly out of his skin because a creature of such power placed their trust in him. Deciding to press his luck, Lúcio stroked up the flat bridge of Akande’s snout to his brow, testing the sharpness in the shorter row of bony spikes on that ridge.

Even the flattest of his scales was so thick, the skin tough, that it was as good as petting stone. At last, Lúcio felt the shift of muscle when he pushed the heel of his hand above Akande’s brow, then at his temple, and those dark eyes slid shut.

Lúcio’s voice was soft, wondering aloud, “Can you feel this?”

A new sound rumbled in Akande’s chest, one Lúcio hadn’t heard before. It wasn’t until the large torso vibrated at his side, did he realise Akande was purring. Warmth swelled in Lúcio's chest, tugging his mouth into a small smile.

Later, Lúcio would wish he had chosen then to hold his tongue.

“All those things they said you did….”

“It is done,” Akande said, and the spell was broken. Lúcio swallowed as Akande's dark eyes opened, not deigning to look at the Prince as he pulled back, and this time neither his wings nor his face could tell Lúcio what he was thinking. “You are the future. The future must eat. Come.”

///

Fareeha Amari.

The greatest knight of her generation, tutored by the last of the Crusaders, Ser Reinhardt Wilhelm. She took the best of her kingdom’s engineering, her mother’s courage, and went where her heroes could not: to the skies.

Lúcio hears her before he sees the blue figure rise from the forest canopy at the castle’s perimeter. Maester Lindholm’s technology is much improved since Lúcio last saw any of Fareeha’s squad in action. Her approach is almost silent, jetpack humming at her back, but Lúcio is the bard of his people and his ear is trained to the slightest shift of vibrations in the atmosphere.

Unfortunately, Lúcio is not the only one sensitive to such things.

Akande unfurls on the balcony of the keep like a lazy coil of flame, his iron scales glimmering in the pale morning sun nearly overhead. The air trembles with the subsonic growl that emerges from his chest, one breath from a snarl that will burn the skies.

Fareeha crests the outer curtain wall in a plume of white, and Lúcio clutches the dragon’s knee at his side, shrouded beneath those wings when they flare in a display of strength.

“Wait,” Lúcio says, and does not wait for Akande to step back.

Dwarfed as he is by the great creature, Lúcio could be restrained by a nudge, a single claw pushing him back to shelter, but when Akande does not, Lúcio knows he has made the right decision to trust him.

“Fareeha!” Lúcio calls, waving as he pushes to the balustrade, unable to hide the smile because he is genuinely elated to see her. She got his message. Moreover, Fareeha is fair and good, she will listen to what he learned after he sent it.

Fareeha’s mask is in the likeness of a proud thunderbird, the protector of her father’s people, the strong beak curving over her eyes to shield everything but her lips. Her mouth is unsmiling.

“Prince Lúcio.” Fareeha’s voice travels farther than should be possible, amplified by some unseen means in her suit. Lúcio falters at the coldness in her voice, the treble of command. “Are you well?”

“Yes,” he calls back, wishing he had his sonic amplifier with him in this moment.

Fareeha hovers above the weathered battlements and Lúcio cannot help but notice she has brought her canon with her. It gleams, polished as the rest of her armour, the famous Commander dressed for battle, but for now she points it low and away. Akande’s wings beat at Lúcio’s back and the wind rushes around Lúcio’s ears.

“I haven’t been mistreated,” Lúcio says.

“And are you at liberty to leave?” she asks, and Lúcio’s eyes widen at the strange accusation in her tone. Is she addressing him or Akande? Before Lúcio can stutter a response, Fareeha’s chin lifts and her sharp gaze pierces him across the short yawn of the bailey. “Do you wish to?”

“My lady… it is not that simple,” Lúcio shakes his head, he doesn’t understand the admonition in her eyes, a brimming anger and, worst of all, disappointment.

“Then let us speak of the facts.”

The jetpack at Fareeha’s back spits a final trail of white as she alights on the ramparts with a light step. Lúcio feels and hears the growl at his back and tries his best to exude a feeling of calm. Reaching back, he is reassured when smooth scales push up beneath his hand. Fareeha nudges her mask up her face, the wedjat stark on her skin even from this distance.

“Three days ago, a dragon came into my family’s home. _A dragon._ No one has _seen_ a dragon since they were pushed beyond the Horizon Colony by King Winston and his brotherhood, but there it was—for the first time in over a century.” Fareeha’s voice hardens, stepping down from the ramparts to the main battlements with slow intent. “In _my home._ The place where my mother sleeps. Where the Queen of five proud houses rests her head, this beast the size of our own great hall somehow gets past all our defences. _”_ She thrusts a hand towards Lúcio as though introducing him to a great assembly. “And my family’s guest, ward of my mother, a prince in his own land, Lúcio Correia dos Santos, was gone when this dragon made his leave. The country has been in chaos since your disappearance, Lúcio. Your kingdom demanded assurances of their heir. We did not know if you were alive or dead. And so we trace you to this old bastion of the Blackwatch. Knights, junkers, mercenaries: they all attempt your rescue. They all fail. But none of them fall. By some miracle, even the weakest among them are turned away with minimal injury… against a dragon. Seeing him now, I know it is _not_ because he lacked the strength. But perhaps--permission. Rio’s Light would not willingly allow the expense of life. So, tell me why, Prince: why does he listen to you?”

“I speak for myself,” Akande growls, a terrible, forbidden noise that makes Lúcio’s knees weak, and Lúcio whirls to the creature above him, reaching for that powerful jaw that could crush him with a single bite, appealing for him to be soft, for that rare kindness he has shown Lúcio in the long, late nights.

“No, no please don’t,” Lúcio says, voice low as he strokes the scales beneath Akande’s jaw. He has not deigned to touch his captor so much in the three long days they’ve endured together, but Akande does not rebuff him. “They can’t – she can’t know who you are.”

Akande ignores him, rolling on like an inexorable tide. “I am Akande Ogundimu, first son of the Iron born, rightful heir to the Iron gauntlet, and guardian of the Western Watch. The Orisa cursed me to this form until the debt to my people can be repaid.”

The silence stretches for a long moment, Lúcio holds his breath, but Fareeha does not raise her canon.

At last, Fareeha speaks, voice careful. “Then you are the successor to the Scourge.”

“I am.”

Lúcio studies his old friend’s body language for a flinch, a twitch of detail that would suggest what is going through her mind. How can Fareeha be so willing to entertain the idea without question? House Ogundimu were a great family that supposedly ended a generation ago when the last of them were killed in the Uprising against the coalition of the three great kingdoms of Reyes, Morrison and Amari. And to speak of the Orisa… nobody had been blessed to hear word from any of the Orisa since before the dragons were driven north.

“And do you continue his work?”

“No,” Lúcio says, adamant, fingers curling into the groove between scales under his hand, despite the skin trembling with a growl once more. They had not come to that agreement in their conversations, but Lúcio is adamant, Akande will not continue that work, he cannot if he wants to be human again.

“And why did you steal our Light?” Fareeha asks.

The dragon shifts on his forelegs, a shudder of movement, flicking his head away from Lúcio’s touch, and Lúcio realises the dragon is chuckling.

“Because dragons like things that _shine._ ”

Lúcio can only stare in dumbfounded horror as the dragon rears above him, chest proud, spiked back arching, his dark lips pulling back to reveal four rows of white gleaming fangs, each as large as a man’s forearm.

No. No, why would Akande lie? Why would he not just tell Fareeha the truth?

“The Prince will return with me, Iron born,” Fareeha says, and lowers her helmet, a door slamming shut.

“I cannot allow that.”

Lúcio tries to tug Akande back down, but his fingers slip over scales as Akande’s wings beat in a heavy push of air that almost thrusts Lúcio to the ground. The dragon drops his shoulders, hind legs gathering their strength, his posture preparing to pounce.

“What are you doing?” Lúcio hisses. “Don’t do this, you don’t have to fight her!”

“I do,” Akande says, with such grim acceptance, Lúcio wonders what the other is not telling him. The dragon throws his voice across the bailey and it rumbles like stones turning in the heat of a forge. “I would hate to leave your mother without an heir, Princess. You have one chance to fly home. If you come at the king—you better not miss.”

Akande’s insult is the final straw for the proud Fareeha, mouth twisting in a scowl. “That’s Commander Amari to you.”

“Don’t hurt her,” Lúcio pleads.

The dragon snarls in disgust and those large, amber eyes flicker to him. “You can’t save all of us.”

A boom of sound propels Fareeha into the sky, and Akande leaps after her with a roar that makes Lúcio clutch his hands over his ears, body shaking.

There has never been a warrior with Fareeha’s command of the skies, but neither has anyone of her generation battled a fully-grown dragon. Fareeha strikes through the air, a deeper slash of blue against the pale morning fog, and her canon fires. The first two shots miss, erupting in a rain of stone and mortar, but the third shot finds its mark.

Lúcio’s heart drops at Akande’s bellow, furious and pained. He searches the smoke and swirling fog overhead, but Fareeha has wisely drawn Akande into the line of the sun, and Lúcio’s eyes blear before he has to look away.

He catches the angles of a taloned wing beyond the blinding circle overhead, Fareeha’s canon fires, and then Lúcio startles with a cry as a strong hand closes over his mouth, an arm wrapping around his waist, tugging him back against an armoured chest.

“Peace, my Lord,” a smooth voice whispers close in his ear, resonant around the edges in the echoing, mechanised manner of omnics, but the body against Lúcio’s back curves like flesh and he feels muscle flex beneath armour when he tugs against the arm across his stomach. “We are sent by your niece. You will be safe.”

What?

Lúcio stiffens, and twists to look over his shoulder. His chest tightens at the mask of a grinning, fanged demon, vivid red eyes aglow as red horns protrude from its forehead. The vicious caricature is at odds with the calm, smooth voice that emerges from it.

Oni. The enforcers of the Eastern kingdoms with their cloud-piercing mountains, fields frothing with rice, cherry blossoms… and demons, like the one before Lúcio. Or at least their very likeness.

Seeing Lúcio calmed from the state of alarm, the hand over his mouth drops, resting on his collarbone.

“Efi?” Lúcio asks, heart racing.

“Indeed.”

“Efi sent you?”

“We must move quickly.” The arm loosens from his waist, pulling back to squeeze his shoulder, perhaps in an attempt of comfort or reassurance. The drum of Lúcio’s heart does not ease until something is pressed into his hand, and Lúcio recognises his niece’s green circlet of cloth that she always wore behind her crown, imprinted with the royal Numbani crest. It is no mistake: unless this man stole it, Efi was the one to send him. Lúcio must take the chance.

The tug on his upper arm propels him into action, but he falters, looking back into the sun.

“But – Fareeha—“ Lúcio cannot voice the greater worry that leaps to the fore, the guilt that swells in his throat for thinking it.

Akande.

“Do not fear, my Prince.” The oni does not allow him to linger, grip firm but gentle as Lúcio is guided swiftly down an unfamiliar path through the causeway, plunging them into a dark corridor that turns swiftly cold and damp, their footsteps sloshing and Lúcio suspects he is being led through the plumbing.

For a long moment, the cold grips him and he thinks he’s made a mistake, that this stranger is leading him to another ransom, or will turn on Lúcio with a blade for his throat, that the ones truly fighting for him are up in the sky.

But they emerge minutes later from a narrow mouth of a cave, and Lúcio heaves a breath of relief to see they are beneath the canopy on the other side of the moat. He is farther than he ever walked with Akande, the small castle looks so much larger from this side when he is not standing at its heights.

Another man is waiting by the cave’s entrance when they surface. Standing with their back to him, Lúcio takes in the quiver of arrows on the man’s back, the long ponytail loose in the wind, the bow held ready in his left hand.

“Any trouble, brother?” the oni asks.

The other man’s face is tilted to the roar of Akande and Fareeha’s canons in the skies. Even from here, Lúcio can hear the beat of Akande’s wings, the hiss in his snarl that tells Lúcio he is truly angry. Fareeha has done remarkably well to last this long, but Lúcio fears for her. Lúcio is not there to rein Akande back, to appeal and check his temper. He will kill her.

“The Queen’s daughter holds. She is a worthy opponent,” the new man says, turning from the battle in the skies. Lúcio looks into his face and is immediately arrested.

The man’s eyes are pure white, without iris or pupil, and stare through Lúcio, chilling his blood. The man’s skin is deep grey, the pallour of one seized at the border between life and death, and losing to the latter. On his left shoulder, intricate icons and lines of power bloom and twist down his breast and arm.

Another demon? What had Efi gotten involved with?

Lúcio cannot help but stare, and is immediately embarrassed when he catches himself. His face flushes with heat, and he bows his head. “Forgive me, I didn’t—“

The oni at his side chuckles, light-hearted. “You still have a way with people, Anija.”

The white-eyed demon does not seem bothered by Lúcio’s flustered apologies. “Your niece wisely sought our assistance. Unlike the knights and mercenaries who answered Queen Amari’s call, Lady Oladele understood that sometimes you must fight dragons – with dragons.”

Lúcio blinks between the two men, uncomprehending. “What--?”

The red, grinning oni beside him straightens to attention, eyes on the sky. “Brother.”

Between the leaves rustling like water, powerful wings beat, and Lúcio’s ears ring with the explosion of canon fire moments before another pained roar makes him flinch. He presses a hand to the abrupt tightness in his chest, blinking through the sting in his eyes, and he does not notice the way the red-eyed oni watches him.

“Now!” Fareeha bellows.

The unseeing archer steps from the cover of the tree line and draws his bow. The moment his arrow brushes the string of his bow, the world bleeds to a slow crawl.

Lúcio’s heartbeat roars in his ears as his vision darkens, watching the archer aim for the skies. This archer is too far to effect any real harm, he is but one man, but something is not right.

No. No, stop—

The ground trembles, red and white whorls of power materialising on the archer’s shoulders, crackling and snaking down the markings on his skin, seeking the arrow head.

“Wait,” Lúcio bleats, but his voice is weak, and his chest, it hurts. Why is it so hard to breathe, why does it rattle in his lungs when he stumbles towards the archer, why is he so _slow_ he has to--

He staggers to his knees, narrowly avoiding a hard landing when the red-eyed one catches him under one shoulder, other hand on his chest. He feels the oni stiffen and watches the man’s glove come away from Lúcio’s chest wet. Lúcio’s dirtied white dress shirt and chrome vest are stained deep red. Lúcio is barely lucid, staring at the mess of himself. Even with the mask on, he can feel the oni staring at him.

_“Ryū ga waga teki wo—“_

The oni snaps to his brother, “Yame--!”

But the archer has already fired.

The forests lining the Western Watch are some of the oldest in the Amari kingdom, towering as tall as its castles, verdant and unbowed. When the power is loosed from that archer’s bow, the ancient monoliths on Amari’s boundary wither and boil to ash before they have the chance to burn.

Lúcio’s ears bleed with the soul-deep roar of hunger that erupts into being less than a foot from him, ochre red, snow white, he only sees the tail of them, flickering around each other like twin eels of malformed lightning, before they charge into the sky.

Dragons.

A vision passes before Lúcio’s eyes, a memory, years ago, reclining behind his work desk in Rio as a young Efi sings a nursery rhyme and dances a miniature pair of Eastern dragon figures of glass across her uncle’s arm: one green, one blue. Her voice lilts as sweet and soft in his mind as it was that warm afternoon.

_“Brother, grieve no debt is due. For, in love, I paid for you….”_

Hot agony lances through Lúcio’s side, electrifying his body to seize, breathless, as he burns from the inside out, before darkness mercifully engulfs him.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Akande never even asked Lucio if he was a vegetarian, can you believe those manners?
> 
> I apologise for the unrepentant amount of dragons in this chapter but, if you don't like dragons, what are you doing here?
> 
> [Come burble with me about dragons](http://bellsyblue.tumblr.com/) (joy emotes only please) and hit us up for a link to join the Doomcio discord server of enablers, it's lit like the sky when ~~Drogon~~ Akande exhales and Lucio's eyes are full of stars; we have a lot of fun.
> 
> (The second and final chapter is two scenes from complete and will be posted within the week.)


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> All men must die (somehow, eventually).

Ana Amari always wanted to retire by the beach.

Unfortunately, there was no such thing as ‘retirement’ for a queen, and she could not justify the cost of relocating her palace and all its people to the coastline. It was a special treat to visit her daughter in their kingdom’s embassy in Oasis. It wasn’t Oahu, but the sky gardens and waterfall highways were always a feat of engineering to behold.

Queen Ana Amari, First of Her Name, Mother of the Five Kingdoms, Protector of the Realm, and retired Commander, has had a very busy few days. She attunes her ear to the echo of rushing water beyond her window to soothe her rising blood pressure and watches the sun refract through its tumble in glittering arcs of ephemeral colour. Her cup of tea steams on its plate in her hand, untouched.

“You disobeyed me,” she says, finally.

Fareeha grunts under her breath, porcelain clinking at Ana's back, an indelicate slide of cups on saucers. “You should have sent me in the first place.”

“I have one heir, habībti. I would not trade your life, even for the Light of our Kingdoms.”

Fareeha stops, setting the teapot down carefully. “Why didn’t you tell me you arranged this? I went in there ill-prepared, not knowing it was my own mother who let a dragon into our home—“

“And why did you not consult _me_ before taking this into your own hands?”

“– The successor to the Scourge! He could have killed you!”

“No,” Ana says. “Those days are past. There are three people who knew of Ogundimu's existence, and if you had returned after your mission, instead of shooting off -- unsanctioned -- you would have been the fourth. Some truths cannot be trusted to messengers."

“Gabriel told me you were fine,” Fareeha snarls, attempts at tea discarded with a scowl. “And Lady Oladele contacted me directly, I could not refuse. Her strategy was sound. She has... an impressive network of her own.”

Ana sighs and turns from the window, regarding her daughter and the poor implication of her appearance in armour for a private audience with her mother. Perhaps this was Ana’s fault, all those years away at war.

“We could both be better at this. But--it is done. And you defeated a dragon,” Ana smiles, unable to contain her pride at the feat. Her daughter truly is the greatest warrior of five kingdoms, and she toppled the last man who held that claim. “Tell me. How was it?”

Fareeha meets her mother’s gaze, uncomfortably shifting in her high-backed seat. Ana knows the trouble of that pinched frown. Her daughter shakes her head. “I had help, but it was easy. Too easy. He could have killed me many times. He had aerial superiority. He never used his breath of fire.” She sighs, taking the small jug of milk and peering into it. “Mother. He was the last of the Ogundimu. They survived the Uprising. But this one served you?"

"He did. This once."

Fareeha's gaze falls to the table, voice quiet. "And now they’re truly dead.”

“It’s a shame the lone survivor of such an old and dignified house was the one who brought them such dishonour. Do not weep for what is done, habībti. Steer your strength to tomorrow instead.”

Fareeha winces gently, gaze still distant. “How did he become that? He said the Orisa cursed him. I thought the Orisa had left us.”

“Oh, my dearest.” Ana takes a sip of her tea and closes the distance to the small table where Fareeha had still failed to choose her drink. Ana takes the teapot and begins preparing a cup for her. “Forces like the Orisa never really leave us. They’re beyond our full appreciation or understanding, but it’s a comfort to know they are still active far and wide. More often their influence is very subtle.”

Fareeha accepts the cup on its saucer, but sets it on the table without bringing it to her lips. Her mind is somewhere far away, and Ana will not rush her. She drinks her tea as the silence thickens around them with the weight of Fareeha's concerns. At length, her daughter stirs back into motion as though rising from a trance, looking to her cup and tracing the golden rim. She releases a long, slow sigh.

“What do I tell the Prince’s family?”

Ana reaches across the table and gently squeezes her daughter’s wrist. “You’ve done your duty. Leave this to me.”

///

It’s a disorienting experience, blinking awake, when you never expect to wake again.

Consciousness sinking back into his body, Lúcio is genuinely surprised to find he still has eyes with which to see, limbs attached and breath in his lungs.

The early morning sun warms his small room in the private ward of Oasis’s royal hospital, pale walls and steel furniture gleaming.

In a cushioned chair at his bedside, Queen Amari bears him a gentle smile, one good eye crinkling beside its patched pair.

“Welcome back.”

Lúcio winces, his throat constricting dry when he sucks in a gasp, and folds into a coughing fit. The Queen leans in and presses a ready cup of water to his lips with a straw, a hand cradling behind his head. He's panting from the simple strain of lifting his head and the straw slips from his lips as he collapses back against the thick pillows, head lolling to the side.

“Did you have a nice adventure?” Ana asks, wiping a stray bead of water that escapes from the straw, streaking down his jaw. Her voice is quiet and close, she is not the queen in this moment and, for the lack of his own mother, Lúcio is glad for the comfort of her presence that fills the room, helps ground him to his bed.

“What happened?” his voice croaks. He feels so weak, he can barely lift his head.

The Queen sets the cup away on the side table with a small sigh. “Protecting kings for their coronation is more complicated than it used to be.”

Lúcio stares. It takes a while for the words to sink in. And then his stomach drops. “... What?”

“Evidently, the one I sent to inform you was intercepted. I apologise for the fright you must have endured, but when we learned of the plot, my council had to act quickly. Ogundimu arrived within the hour. My people worked through our staff to root out the assassins, the informants. It unsettles me how many we shed once this plot was uncovered. People I thought were loyal.” Ana shakes her head, mouth tensing in a line. She throws a look over his body, the white blankets pulled over his chest, the clear, unbandaged skin of his arms. “I’m sorry this happened to you in my home. Fareeha tells me you claim you weren’t mistreated.”

“What happened?” Lúcio pulls the hospital gown down at his collar, frowning when he finds his chest unmarred. He paws weakly at the shallow valley between his muscles and the ghost agony of a void still echoing there: burning, whittling away. He shudders, hand clenching to a fist over the sensation. He remembers the impact of dropping to his knees, the oni’s hand coming away with blood. “I was—“

"You arrived here a mess. Our tests prove the blood was yours, but once the surgeons got you on the table, there were no wounds. What do you remember?”

“No. I don’t… I don’t know how to—I was fine, I was fleeing with the brothers Efi sent… and then there was—“

Lightning. A red and white maelstrom. Burning from the inside.

Lúcio’s voice is weak, hoarse. “How am I alive?”

Ana spreads her hands in a shrug and reclines in her chair. “You _were_ in the company of dragons. What is one more miracle? Whatever was done to your mind took longer to heal. You’ve been unconscious for three days, my lord. Your coronation is tomorrow.”

Lúcio’s mind almost short-circuits at the shock, he flinches at the white needle of phantom pain that strikes and forks behind his eyes. He shuts them with a wince, the queen’s profile burning on the back of his eyelids. “Oh man.”

“We will have you home in time, don’t fear. We’ve already informed your family of your good health and what transpired. Lady Oladele is waiting to see you, I think she intends to travel with you to Rio de Janeiro. Doctor Ziegler will also be accompanying to monitor your health until we can return you to the hands of your own doctors.”

It’s a whirlwind to process. The sheets crumple in Lúcio’s fist as he takes a slow deep breath, harder than it should be with his chest wound so tight.

“There were so many who found us at the castle. Does--does that mean… they weren’t there to rescue me?”

“Perhaps some were. Others, no.” Ana’s gaze is like a tangible weight on his face, and Lúcio ignores it, has to rally his strength and keeps his eyes shut for a moment longer. The Queen’s voice flattens to a perfunctory tone. “He ultimately failed, you know.”

Lúcio’s eyes shoot open, staring at her in shock. What did she—?

“He was supposed to keep you safe until the passage of the summer equinox, when you could be returned for your coronation. A week. Fool didn’t last three days. Thankfully Lords Reyes and Morrison found the would-be assassins and foiled their plot before Fareeha returned you.”

Lúcio’s stomach churns, heart thudding painfully in his chest. “Akande only failed because your _daughter_ shot him from the sky.”

“’Akande’, was it?” Ana’s mouth lifts with a slight smile, a twinkle in her eye.

It’s hard to relate to her gentle amusement when his head is ringing with the horrible prospect before him. Lúcio’s voice catches in his throat, dreading the answer.

“Is he dead?”

The Queen meets his eye, her smile softening with sympathy, and Lúcio’s vision blurs with the hot sting behind his eyes.

No. No. Not another one.

“He did his duty,” Ana’s hand closes over his wrist, and her thumb strokes lines of comfort over his bare skin. “In the end, he served the realm once again.”

Lúcio’s throat constricts with guilt, expression crumbling, and he throws his head back on his pillow, eyes shut with a wretched growl.

"He and Fareeha were each doing their duty. We can't fault them for that," Ana says.

So many lives. Wasted. How many did that number now? How many would die in service before Lúcio was done? How many more deaths would he fail to prevent?

The Queen is quiet, respectfully waiting for him to gather himself. Lúcio learned early that people of their position are only granted moments to grieve. It’s one of the aspects he hates most about their role, learning to be more efficiently human.

He wills his heart to slow. He draws his breaths deeper. Eventually, Lúcio forces the burning knot of tension in his throat down far enough to speak. His voice still sticks in his throat, tries more than once to ground the words out.

"If Fareeha died, I think you would find the fault, my Lady."

"Lúcio." Ana's voice is hard. "Akande Ogundimu was a warlord. His vision led to his people's end. One of the greatest tragedies of our time. This was not a fault, it was restoring the balance."

“... Then after all he did in the war, why did you trust him to look after me?”

Ana doesn’t hesitate. “For his debts, keeping you alive was in his greater interest. We had an understanding.”

Lúcio swallows thickly, reaching for the cup at his side table and murmurs his thanks when Ana passes it to him.

“Were you the one who turned him?”

Ana levels him with a shrewd look. “I may be Queen, but you overestimate my powers, my Lord.”

Lúcio glances away, biting the inside of his cheek. “Did you command the one who did?”

“What does it matter now?”

He is not satisfied with that answer, but takes the cue to move on. “The ones who saved me, the brothers. Who were they?”

She hums, her turn to glance away in that manner Lúcio recognised when she was weaving a diplomatic answer. A dash of poetry, and maybe some truth if he was lucky.

“There are many wonders in this world. Your dragon was not the only one who sought redemption.”

///

The next day passes in a blur. Efi is Lúcio’s saving grace in the transition, anchoring him to the present and his body every time she takes his hand: at his bedside in Oasis, in the transport to Rio, and again before the coronation commences, and he is trembling in his ridiculous robes.

This is a farce. Lúcio is not a king. He’s a bard and a freedom fighter. They call him the Light because he holds hope to his chest when the air is spent, and moves faster than any man, omnic or beast _(nothing moves faster than light)_ , because he is the first to bend the knee to his people’s needs, but he is not a ruler.

“I can’t do this,” he stammers, and Efi takes both his hands in hers, holding them tight to her stomach.

She is so grown since he met her all those years ago as a young engineer, terrorising her royal caretakers with her robotic experiments. Efi is like him: her parents are the current monarchs by popular election, not by blood, and she is beloved in Numbani. She will be taller than Lúcio soon, but her eyes will always be dark and large, and braver than Lúcio can ever be. He wishes he was still naive enough to have her kind of courage.

“Lúcio,” Efi’s voice is firm, and she squeezes his hands. “If not you, then who?”

He loves her, and hates that she is right.

///

He survives his coronation.

Queen Amari crowns him in the palace that Vishkar built, and it feels all wrong.

The building is too clean. The sun glares down through a humidity that makes him regret the austere robes he let Efi talk him into. The sleeves are too long, the cloth too heavy; it makes no sense for Rio’s weather. Lúcio stands among too few at the head of the white stair while the streets overflow with people come to see their king.

Is it too early to hate the title?

He is exhausted, but smelling the air of the city again, the comfort of its familiar noise, scenes and people helps him smile. He bows his head, speaks all the right words and thankfully doesn’t mess up his oath to the people when Ana raises the golden circlet.

When she rests it on his head, he has to physically restrain his body from bowing away.

It’s a relief when the ceremony ends and he has leave to transition, if just for a moment, back to the man that led his favela—later his city and country—to revolution.

He doesn’t remember a word of the speeches, and the buzz in his ears fades the moment he picks up his headphones over the turntables. The cheer at his crowning moment swells to a joyous roar that makes his heart skip a beat, swelling his chest with a heavy, urgent weight of gratitude for the love pouring out towards him. That hot sting is behind his eyes again as the turntables come to life in a wash of light and colour. His body pulses with the bass of the first note, and he closes his eyes, exhaling with a small shudder of relief. He can’t help but smile.

This is what he knows.

He tries not to think about when or if he’ll ever be allowed to do this again and commits to lose himself to the rhythm. One last time.

///

Lúcio doesn't find much solace or rest in sleep.

He dreams a great dragon dozes in his gardens, Akande's deep, slow breaths rumbling through the foundations of the palace like a steadying heartbeat. He dreams of stroking a hand down that great muzzle, and thrills at the exhilarating light and warmth that springs in his chest when he presses his face to the smooth scales, and is not butted away.

He dreams of a giant of a man who is so dark he gleams blue under the moon, towering at the balconies over the favela. Lúcio stares at the broad spread of his shoulders, his proud jaw, everything about his frame designed for power and control. Standing with his back to Lúcio, he is an intimidating sight. Lúcio just wants to reach out and test if he's real.

He wakes up and has his answer.

The first time his gut lies to him, it's a slow fall of shock. It takes a while to remember that Akande is dead. Like his mother. Like the victims of Vishkar's first push and final resistance.

The dreams persist.

Each time, he tests himself, reaches for that instinct in his gut that tells him if he's dreaming or awake, the same instinct that warns of danger. Nothing in him tells him to run. Each time, he gets closer to the man on the balcony. The gardens in Lúcio's dreams are filling up with bodies.

The next time he sees Akande at that ledge, standing with his back to him, he remembers. He's had this dream before. He won't be fooled again.

Akande turns and Lúcio is frozen by the wry amusement in his face. He never saw that in any pictures.

"My lord hesitates," Akande teases in a smooth timbre that Lúcio has never heard but knows is right.

 _I'm not your lord,_ he means to say, instead reaches out. A warm hand takes his, closing around his wrist to draw him in. Those hands are calloused, a firm but careful grip on his elbows. Lúcio stares up, up into Akande's softening expression, and his heart constricts.

Akande is smiling. It’s not the curve of his mouth so much as the indulgent look in his eyes that draws Lúcio’s own smile, and he feels like he's been released from the cage of his skin. He reaches past the vice in his chest for that instinct again, as fingers tip his chin up.

Maybe that's why his instincts lie to him, because he wakes once more and Akande is still dead.

Lúcio doesn't understand why his own mind is torturing him.

The days blur past in a smear of meetings, tours through the city, and paperwork. He had no idea there was so much paperwork and briefings to being king.

Once more, Akande stands in the moonlight and Rio gleams at their feet.

In the moment, Lúcio doesn't remember the times before. The hurt is still there, the pain of waking to his own lie lingering beneath suppressed memory like a bruise. _He only served you for three days,_ Lúcio tells himself. _He's not a good guy. He killed so many. He has no honour._

_He protected you, he kept you safe. He was not a good man, but he tried for you._

_Or her_ , another voice corrects. _He tried under her orders._

He lets Akande draw him close anyway, melting against the warmth and safety of his chest. Even as a human, Akande still towers over him. Strong arms close low around his back and shoulders, and Lúcio breathes lighter than he has since his coronation. He buries his face against the warm skin of Akande’s abdomen and breathes deeply, shedding tension in short, shuddering exhales.

"Would I have the honour to serve you, my Lord?" Akande’s fingers thread and gently tug between Lúcio's dreadlocks. Lúcio’s heart is soaring and it doesn't occur to him that you don't touch your king like this when offering oaths of fealty.

It just makes the fall that much harder when he wakes.

///

Three weeks after the coronation, Efi still lingers in Rio.

Lúcio is afraid to ask her why—for her guidance? The experience? He has the other Lords for that, and Queen Amari left Ser Wilhelm in Rio until Lúcio could finalise his own Kingsguard and private council.

It’s poignant: Lúcio is taken from the Queen’s home by a dragon and so she leaves “the Dragonslayer” to watch over him. Lúcio will have to ask about the story behind his title one day.

Efi finds Lúcio one morning in the gardens outside the royal apartments – a converted complex lands away from where Lúcio started his life. He recognises none of the faces nor any of the streets. It’s cleaner, safer, elevated above the atmosphere of the lower valley where the air is thicker with pollution, the vapours of petrol, baked goods warming through the ever-lingering smell of something decomposing. Lúcio kind of misses it.

Efi joins him at the balcony outlooking the valley where the colourful stacks of favela layer upon each other like mosaic tiles against the mountain. Their government wanted to place Lúcio somewhere else, but he can’t afford to lose sight of the favelas. Some primal, elementary fear grips him that he’ll forget his mission once the people are out of his sights. He’s already so far removed.

“You haven’t been the same since you came back,” Efi says. Lúcio regrets looking at her because the soft sadness in her face tightens a band around his heart. “I don’t know what you went through… but if you want to talk about it. I can listen.”

It’s shameful that the younger of them needs to prop up her elder. It’s supposed to be the other way around. It’s easy to forget they’re separated by fifteen whole years. It feels like less, when she speaks like this.

Lúcio tucks a hand behind her neck and bites his cheek until the hot sting behind his eyes fades. He clears his throat and instead asks something that has gnawed at him since Queen Amari left him to reconcile with his survival in that hospital room. “How did you meet those brothers? The ones who came for me with Fareeha?”

“Maester Zenyatta,” Efi says.

Lucio thinks back, leafing through his memories. The name… Zenyatta. It sounds like the moniker of one of the Shambali.

“The Maester who served your family?”

“ _Helped_ ,” Efi corrects him, pulling herself up to sit beside him on the stone wall, thin arms hugging the rail. “He helped Genji, too. I was very young when I met Genji. I have still not met his brother, but I knew about him. That was before.”

“Before what?”

Efi looks out over the valley, legs kicking against the stone wall. Her head tilts as she squints into the East, mouth pouting thoughtfully. “When they were still human.”

“What are they now?”

The things Lucio saw: those deathly pallours. The dragons.

_Your dragon was not the only one who sought redemption._

Efi’s voice is light with the ease of certainty. She does not hesitate. “My friends.”

///

The moon is almost full overhead the next time Lúcio returns to that balcony in the gardens, cloak tight around his shoulders in the humid evening chill.

He is exhausted from the day's long conference with the visiting lords. He was not made for politics, but he is learning. His head feels full and his heart is heavy. Did he have dinner? He can't remember. He doesn't remember coming out to the gardens, either. A low, quiet melody plays from a mobile system he set atop the stone wall: one of the tunes he designed for the victims in recovery from skirmishes with Vishkar. He wonders if he's a bad composer or he's just unlucky enough that his own music doesn't work its healing beat on him tonight to soothe his nerves.

Someone settles behind him on the benches. Lúcio glances over his shoulder, and his heart cracks at the chiselled, unmistakable profile in his periphery. From the corner of his eye, he takes in the ease of Akande’s stature at rest on the low stone bench, leaning forward with his elbows on his knees. Lúcio shakes his head, turning back to the valley, vision blurring with tears.

"I can't do this today," he chokes out, rolling his eyes to the heavens.

He's so tired. His people need work, the environmental security of the country is a rising concern with the encroaching temporal anomaly, none of his ministers can assure him that the Lijiang Group's overtures won't just be another Vishkar, and people are getting restless that he hasn't finalized his cabinet yet. Let alone his kingsguard.

He misses the days when his greatest worry was how high he could climb in his skates, how fast, how far he could go. He can't even remember the last time he touched them. He fondly recalls ducking the authorities, the bass of his concerts swelling like a storm in those underground tunnels, scheming to take back their favela.

If only he had appreciated how much harder it would be when they finally won.

Behind him, Akande’s apparition scoffs. “I did not expect a hero’s welcome, but I had to slip past your Dragonslayer to get here. Have I not at least earned a proper greeting?”

“Stop coming here.”

“Stop?” Akande sounds both affronted and confused, and Lúcio would like to be ejected from this dream, please.

“ _Go_ haunt someone else,” he throws over his shoulder, angrily swiping the hot tears from his cheeks. “I’m tired and I don’t—“

"What? You don't what?" Akande goads when the words stick in Lúcio's throat. The warrior's voice curls with a sneer. "Don't let me interrupt. That would be rude."

Lúcio grounds the words out, resolute that his voice will stop wavering. "I'm trying to govern a _country_ , I don't have time for a _ghost_."

Finally, Lúcio turns. And stops.

And stares.

Akande glares back at him, eyes narrowed, but unlike all his visits before, his gaze now gleams with a soft, pale light. His skin, previously so dark it would appear blue under the full moon, seems to draw in all light around him, the hue of a sky anticipating the sun at dawn. As Lúcio watches, bright cyan whorls of light curl up Akande's arm with the clench of his fist, down his chest, across his shoulders, like a brand accentuating every muscle in symbols Lúcio does not understand.

A mask is pushed back atop his head, tufted with the same straw that frames his unfamiliar clothes at his knees. Lúcio cannot recall this vision from any of the archives.

Akande looks like an avatar, a spirit of the Heavens come to throw Lúcio into its void.

"A ghost?"

Akande stands, face drawn in a deep scowl, and Lúcio's heart races when the other man begins to advance on him.

"Who do you _think_ you speak to? I fell through molten fire and ash of my own body—defending _you_. I was ravaged by the spirits of demons, they took my wing.” His right arm flexes, and Lúcio belatedly realises it is not like the left—dull red and gold metal glint of an armoured shoulder, shifting gears and pistons that whirr as Akande thrusts the hand behind him from whence he came. “Your princess gored me. But I lived, for you. I kept this oath, for _you_ ," Akande all but spits in disgust, slowing less than an arm’s length away. He towers, swarming Lúcio's senses, and Lúcio stumbles back against the stone wall, knees weak, staring at the man before him. "Call me a ghost,” he dares.

“What?” The ground seems to tip beneath Lúcio's feet, he leans back against the thick rail for support.

His heartbeat thunders in his ears, clinging to every minute shift of expression in Akande’s face as that unnaturally bright gaze searches him, scowl softening with a resigned roll of his shoulders.

Was he always this articulated before? Something has changed. But Lúcio has been cheated too many times. He is afraid to reach down within himself to that instinct that has already lied to him, to tell the difference between dream and reality. There are no more possibilities. He knows the answer. And yet… he wants….

But it couldn't.

It couldn’t be.

The tall warrior snorts in disbelief at Lúcio's mute stare. "You mock me." Lúcio startles when his nose is caught between two knuckles and pinched gently. His hands fly to cover his nose with a shocked cry even as Akande lets go, knuckles softly butting up under his chin. Lúcio shivers at the touch, electrified.

"Am I a figment of your imagination, my King?”

'My king'?

Lúcio's voice is muffled behind the cup of his hands over his mouth and nose. “You’re… you’re—“

That glowing gaze pierces through the denial Lúcio holds before him as a flimsy shield. Akande is quiet for a long time, studying whatever he sees in Lúcio's face, with unbearable intensity. Maybe he is taken aback by Lúcio's lack of shame for the tears streaming hot down his cheeks. At length, Akande sighs, large warm hands curling around Lúcio's cloaked shoulders.

“You’re shaking.” It sounds like both an apology and admonishment.

“You died,” Lúcio finally says, a raw ache in his heart and lungs pulsing through him to utter it aloud.

He does not say “you’re dead”, he can’t bear the blow of Akande affirming it so easily. It turns out, he doesn’t have to.

“I did,” Akande shrugs that new, reinforced shoulder, “Part of me. So did you. And here you stand.”

What?

Akande stills under Lúcio’s suspicious stare. “Commander Amari didn’t tell you? Her witch? My dragon heart?”

Lúcio stiffens, straightening tall. _“What?”_

Akande sighs, sinking to his knees and bringing them eye-to-eye on even ground. Lúcio is tense as his hand is pulled to rest over Akande's heart. His fingers curl into the flesh, feeling the strong, steady rhythm beating beneath his palm, and the warmth of Akande's skin. Akande covers the smaller hand with his own.

"Perhaps she did not tell you because she didn’t know if I would survive when the brothers took me away. Once, I was immortal. Now I am not. But _you…_ have kept your own secrets," Akande’s other hand taps Lúcio's vest above his heart, and rests there, warm and heavy. An unfamiliar but reassuring weight. "You saved me. Long enough for the witch to make the trade.”

Lúcio remembers his vest stained deep red. The flaring agony in his side.

Could it really be true?

“I… I don’t know how—“

Akande searches his face carefully. “You didn’t know you could do that?”

Lúcio shakes his head, and Akande hums with interest.

“So, there is still more to learn about you, young King. And I _would_ learn… if you would honor me.”

His free hand cups Lúcio's face, thumb stroking a light line down the bridge of his nose, across the arch of his brow. Lúcio's heart leaps, remembering how he did that for the dragon, how Akande purred at Lúcio's side, a beast content for the first and last time.

‘Fearsome’, was it?

It should be unsettling, being under the warm scrutiny of this thing wearing Akande’s face but, like a fool, Lúcio's heart is weak with hope.

"... You're alive?" Lúcio grasps the hand on his cheek. His eyes rake down the powerful form kneeling before him. He is not used to this man where there used to be a dragon. A trembling step takes him forward.

“Would this really be the strangest thing in our lifetimes?” Akande pulls him closer until Lúcio's knees bump Akande's thighs, and those large, warm arms wrap around Lúcio's back.

Akande's touch is heavier than it ever seemed in Lúcio's earlier dreams. Lúcio's senses sharpen. He is hyper aware of the pressure low on his back when his weight lists unsteadily again, and he arches away, into Akande’s chest. He gasps at the contact of the solid, unmoving wall of a man before him, the way Akande holds and cradles him with ease. It’s a keen relief after the mounting pressure of the past few weeks, feeling like he’s shuddering apart and reforming at every snatched moment of respite.

Akande’s thumb smears away the tears on his cheeks, and Lúcio can't help turning his face into that palm. He can't manage words yet. Akande seems to understand.

"Perhaps being king is not for everyone. It was not for me either. In the end."

"You're alive,” Lúcio murmurs into his palm, feeling his expression crumble.

Fingers curl beneath the nape of his neck, a bracing comfort. “I am.”

“If this is another dream….” Lúcio huffs, and he claws blunt nails into the flesh over Akande’s heart. The muscle is almost unyielding, Lúcio follows the bright curl of lines in his skin with his thumbnail. “I’ll kill you.”

He can’t take it. He can’t bear to wake tomorrow again and—

“If this is a dream, then you must wake,” Akande says.

Lúcio rears back to look him in the eye, affronted, but Akande holds him close and fast.

“Rio does not need kings, but it needs you. The people love Amari, but I would rather serve a monarch who still walks among his people. I would serve hope. If you’ll have me.”

Lúcio blinks. “You want to… what?”

“Allow me to serve you while you lead them. Make them better and stronger. Wiser. You are faced by conflict on many sides, but there are many kinds of strength. I did not appreciate that before.”

Another thought occurs to Lúcio. “Is that what you meant? When you said I’d do something you couldn’t?”

Akande sighs quietly, humbled. “I brought shame on my house and destroyed it. Perhaps by serving a good man, _I_ may still do some good.”

“You can,” Lúcio says, without reason to hesitate. “I know you can.”

Akande’s smile is subtle, but Lúcio feels the warm pleasure that radiates from him. “If my Lord believes it, then I have a chance.”

The chill of dread is fading from beneath Lúcio’s skin, but he wants to trust enough to hope.

“So you’ll... you'll stay with me? You’ll serve my people?”

“I swear it,” Akande says, voice as stern as Lúcio has ever heard it, and something of the dragon echoes in its rumble.

“For how long?” Lúcio’s heart skips a beat, his palms are clammy with a telling chill, but Akande doesn’t seem to care, taking both of Lúcio’s hands in his, holding them before his chest. If Lúcio was a braver man, he might have understood why it warms his face with a blush, why his whole being throbs with acute pain at the thought of waking to find this another deceit of his mind. In another time, another place, Lúcio might ask one thing more of the brave man before him, but tonight his wants are simple and desperate and singular.

Stay. Please, please stay.

“Until my Lord release me, or death take me,” Akande swears, eyes intent on his.

Lúcio swallows thickly, almost wilting under that gaze. He nods. “Okay.”

Akande smiles, head tilting to the side in amusement. “Okay?”

“Okay.” Lúcio can’t say more in the face of that genuine, shocking smile lighting Akande’s handsome features. It steals Lúcio’s breath, tightening his chest, and he freezes, _Oh no. Oh no._ His stomach drops even as his heart sings because Akande gathers him to his chest, rising to his feet with a quiet laugh of joy, and Lúcio wraps arms around his neck, hides his face in that thick shoulder to suck in deep lungfuls of the unfamiliar blend of straw, iron and _protection—_

“It’s all right,” Akande hushes, hand cradling the back of Lúcio’s neck, other arm binding low to keep Lúcio flush against his chest. Lúcio is trembling, eyes wet again. A fresh sob rips from him when he feels Akande’s cheek press to his hair, warm breath whispering down his neck, “You are the one they need. The world will remember. And you will not be left to do this alone.”

Lúcio isn’t sure he believes it, but Akande does. That, maybe, is enough reason to hope.

Maybe hope is enough for now.

Lúcio closes his eyes and breathes and hopes that he will be enough for his people. He shudders and hopes that when he wakes up tomorrow, there will not be a void where Akande promised to stand with him. And if he is blessed in that, Lúcio hopes he has the strength to meet the man's eyes without his heart arresting. By some grace, Akande was restored to him, whatever he is now. He will not waste it.

So, Lúcio breathes deep and holds on in Akande's embrace beneath the light of the heavy moon in his gardens, and wagers in hope.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> And what do we say to death?
> 
> "Not today."
> 
> (Do not look a gifthorse in the face, lest it turn around and tell you to cease your resistance.)

**Author's Note:**

> [Come burble with me about dragons](http://bellsyblue.tumblr.com/) (joy emotes only please) and hit us up for a link to join the Doomcio discord server of enablers, it's lit like the sky when ~~Drogon~~ Akande exhales and Lucio's eyes are full of stars; we have a lot of fun.


End file.
